Turns out there's no such thing as a free overhaul

A rule of political sausage-making holds that no one seriously believes the expected costs of a proposed program as described by its proponents.

With rare exceptions, new government services always cost more than advertised. Often, much more.

Even by Washington standards of price deception, however, the sudden veil-lifting cost revelations regarding the nation's new health-care reforms are staggering.

The legislation was passed March 21. One month later, the actuarial service for the Medicare and Medicaid programs released a study that profoundly contradicts the underlying premise - the straight-faced promise - of President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats that their health-care reforms would not add to the deficit.

The actuaries concluded that the new law will add at least $389 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years. Further, they expect its unanticipated consequences will include 14 million people losing their employer-based insurance as more companies choose to pay federal penalties rather than health-care bills.

And state taxpayers will become more burdened than expected as at least 4 million people are added to the state-based Medicaid systems, such as Arizona's AHCCCS program.

Federal Health and Human Services officials, including Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, are denying reports that they knew about the much higher costs of the program prior to Congress' hotly contested vote on March 21. Fine. For now. Absent on-the-record evidence to the contrary, they should be taken at their word.

Obviously very few people bought into the obviously contorted "cost neutral" figures provided by the Congressional Budget Office prior to the vote. But in the highly stylized kabuki theater known as Congress, the opponents could not dispute the CBO figures because they had no solid evidence to the contrary.

Too late to matter, we now see figures with more substance. And, suddenly, Washington's sausage-making appears even more grisly and unappetizing than before.